Literary Criticism
An Ideal Husband
The "Ideal Husband" of the title is Sir Robert Chiltern, with his equally upright wife Lady Chiltern. He has never committed a cri…
The Devil's Pool
George Sand (the pen name of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin 1804-1876) is famous for flaunting the conventions of behavior expected of women o…
Mrs. Armytage
Mrs Armytage is a widowed landowner, spirited, independent and very much used to having her own way and exercising total dominance over her …
The Cossacks
The Cossacks (1863) is an unfinished novel which describes the Cossack life and people through a story of Dmitri Olenin, a Russian aristocra…
The Chaperon
What on earth is a girl to do when London society has convicted her mother of a dreadful sin and has ostracized her? If blood is thicker tha…
Tolstoy on Shakespeare
In this thought-provoking essay, Leo Tolstoy presents a critical examination of William Shakespeare's works, exploring the playwright's them…
The Golden Bowl
The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some cri…
Against The Grain
Against The Grain is a provocative exploration of aestheticism and the complexities of modern existence, penned by Joris-Karl Huysmans. This…
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
This is Mark Twain's vicious and amusing review of Fenimore Cooper's literary art. It is still read widely in academic circles. Twain's essa…
Contending Forces
Contending Forces is a powerful exploration of race, identity, and love set against the backdrop of a divided America. Pauline Elizabeth Hop…
A Dozen Short Stories
Twelve of H. G. Wells' early short stories (1894-1925) originally printed in various magazines and papers. His earlier works delve into the …
The Burning Secret
A lonely, convalescing 12 year-old boy and his attractive mother, who is in a loveless marriage, meet a gentleman while vacationing at a Eur…
The Colonel's Dream
In this novel, Chesnutt described the hopelessness of Reconstruction in a post-Civil War South that was bent on reestablishing the former st…
Hunger
Hunger (Norwegian: Sult) is a novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun and was published in its final form in 1890. The novel has been hail…
Our Mutual Friend
Dickens' last complete novel was published serially 1864-5. It begins with an intriguing fortune offered to John Harmon by his late father, …
Sons of the Covenant
Born in London's poverty-stricken and heavily Jewish East End, the Lipcott boys create their own successes in life and love. The brothers' c…
The Perfect Wagnerite
The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring (originally published London, 1898) is a philosophical commentary on Richard Wagne…
Mrs. Craddock
“I thought it was you I saw coming up the hill,” she said, stretching out her hand.He stopped and shook it; the touch of his big, firm finge…
The House of the Seven Gables
The House of the Seven Gables is a gloomy New England mansion, haunted from its foundation by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft…
The Town Traveller
The town traveller is himself a British salesman, living in a lower class part of London in the Victorian era. The story depicts his interac…